Unrest for the Weary
by Nightwind
Summary: A tale of insurrection, treachery, mayhem, pseudo-death, whumping, a bit of destruction, and a heavy dose of general chaos at Decepticon HQ. Surprisingly, it's NOT Starscream's fault. Big. Epic. Mayhap even fun, if you're into this sort of thing...
1. Optional Author's Notes

As usual, I want to preface this story a bit. Well, a lot, actually... Hence, why I made the Author's Note its own "chapter." You may skip it, if you like. No vital or exciting information is divulged. I just like rambling on, is all.

This is actually a fanfic originally written in *gulp* 1992. It is/was pretty awful, but I still had this weird soft spot for it anyway. Probably because it's still fun for me to read; its original incarnation more or less centered on my self-insert character, Nightwind, whose name became my screen name – obviously – in TF fandom. _I_ like her well enough, given that she's _my_ idealized self-insert, but I doubt that she would be nearly as enjoyable for anyone else. So her presence was exactly the thing that made me consider the story BadFic.

Yet, I like the kernel idea of the story because it's fun. Many of the chapters/bits of the story – Basically, those parts of the story that were Nightwind-less – were/are enjoyable in and of themselves, and it dawned on me that with some fixing and some updating and rewriting and filling in of holes left by removing said self-insert, it could even be a _good_ story, if I wanted it to be.

So, that's what I've decided to do: Fix it. Update it. Revamp a good three-quarters of it. I never finished the original story, and yet it was 269 pages long before I started to take a self-insert-obliterating machete to it. (Ah, for the days when I had time to write like that!) After removing Nightwind by hacking out entire (sometimes long) scenes and by editing bits of others in which she is mentioned but doesn't appear or only appears in a very small way, I've got it whittled down to 136 pages, though now it has lots of big, gaping holes in the plot. The Nightwind-ectomy is forcing me to rewrite two entire plotlines, though; I now have to entirely rethink the motivations of two of the major characters in the story. I've got one under control already. (Here ya go, Skywarp: Have a heaping helping of yummy angst. It's good for what ails ya!) The other…Well, I'll think of something. I hope. I've got a bit of time since that particular plotline doesn't kick in until a little bit later in the story, as that particular character's off-planet for a little while…

But anyway, of the 136 pages I've got left, the bulk of it is "front-loaded" toward the beginning of the story. So, I have decided to bite the bullet and start uploading it here. My plan, at this point, is to update every other Saturday. Perhaps more often than that, occasionally, if I can manage it. I just don't want to be too ambitious. I'm _hoping_ that I'll be able to keep ahead of myself that way, given that I have a bit of a head start with the already-written stuff. I'm not promising that this is what will happen because I'm a grown-up and have a life and things happen that take precedence over writing silly fanfics, but that's what I'm hoping will happen. I'm also hoping that doing this will serve to keep my interest and motivation up; I've been seriously lacking in enthusiasm and inspiration for anything, writing or otherwise, in...Well, for quite a while now.

Now, a bit about this story in general. Warnings, perhaps:

1) This story is certified completely 100% canon-compatible, in the sense that nothing in it directly conflicts with the events of the original G1 cartoon. (And, you know, according to me the comics don't exist. Any of them. )

2) As will shortly become obvious, the story takes place sometime in the big ol' gap between the first two seasons of the cartoon and the original 1986 movie. I envision it as kind of a lull period in that stretch of time in terms of the Autobot/Decepticon war thing. By the time of the movie, the 'Cons have taken over Cybertron, but at whatever time this story takes place, I'm declaring that it's more the Autobots who are in control of it. Why? Because otherwise the very first non-prologue chapter of the story would not be _nearly_ so amusing. ;) After that chapter, though, things on Cybertron don't really matter in terms of the story anymore, anyway.

3) Although it could by rights do so, given its time setting, the story features none of the third season Autobots. The original version _did_ have some of those characters in it, but I've written them out already in an effort to keep the cast size under some vague sort of control. Apologies to those who like those characters.

4) This story contains no slash, which will perhaps disappoint some while delighting others, even though it features some characters that I slash with gleeful abandon nowadays. This story doesn't belong to that "universe," though. It dates from a time period in which I was doing my level best to avoid the whole slash thing when it came to TF fic, having gotten sick of it in other fandoms for which I wrote stuff and things. In fact, this story contains **NO ROMANCE WHATSOEVER**. I guess it's me writing in "guy mode" or something… ;)

5) There is no five. There is never a five. The five is a lie.

6) The original three Seekers all take a severe beating, each in his turn, over the course of the story. This is something which brings me great joy and satisfaction for some perverse reason. I guess it's true that you really do hurt only the ones you love. This is not so "guy mode" of me, I guess, as character-whumping seems to be a chick thing in fic, eh?

7) Although Nightwind has been eradicated from the story, it does still contain two original characters in not just prominent but honest-to-God _major_ roles. One is the main villain himself. You are not meant to like him at all, so feel free to despise him. You will meet him in the prologue, which I will post directly after this. (Given my more recent stories, it's odd that I'd write a story in which Megatron becomes, in a sense, a "good guy." But there it is. :) ) The other OC is a Decepticon chief medic that I created. I figure that the Decepticons need a dedicated medic, as the Autobots have in Ratchet. They always get the shorter end of the stick, in the end, and Hook can't be everywhere at once. Plus, she has an important role to play in the story. I do hope that you like her. Or at least that you don't want to strangle her simply because she is a Dreaded Female Decepticon OC™. Hey, at least she's not a Seekerbabe! Nor is she busy macking on anyone. And at least with the removal of Nightwind, she's the only DFDOC™.

8) The story contains mild-ish cursing. Human-style cursing, even, because I've never been one for making up Cybertronian-sounding ones. I haven't even really adopted the otherwise universally-adopted "slag" as a TF curse word. (Because, you know, poor Slag, the character. *pets Slag*) Way I figure it, the TFs were "programmed" to speak English by Teletran One, so they're gonna curse in English in my stories, too, dammit! :) Even if it makes no sense. Also, there is violence. And feeble attempts at writing action/adventure, a genre at which I generally suck. But, like I said, no mushy stuff! It's rather nice to take a break from mush, actually.

9) For those who might care, like if you're one of those people who seeks out stories about only certain characters, the non-OC main characters in the story are:

**Decepticons**: Starscream, Thundercracker, Skywarp, Megatron, Astrotrain(!), and a wee smattering of Soundwave here and there. ("Wee" because I generally suck at writing him, else his role would likely be much larger. He's a very useful character but…dang, is he hard to write properly! Drives me nuts…)

**Autobots:** Jazz, Ratchet, Grimlock, Optimus Prime, Ironhide, Wheeljack, and a smattering of Prowl because, you know, there's this law says that any story I write has to have him in it _somewhere_. *sigh*

Other characters on both sides appear, too, here and there, and some of those characters might end up with larger roles as I fill in the holes in the story, but the above-named are the main focus as it stands right now. The story's pretty epic, at least in terms of sheer length, but I'm trying to keep the main cast to a manageable size. Mostly for the sake of my own sanity, really. I'm selfish that way. ;)

As a wee note of trivia, just because: I call one of the plotlines of this story "Astrotrain & Grimlock's Not-So-Excellent Adventure." Be warned. As another note…Isn't it funny how my author's notes are longer than many people's entire fics? HAH!

So! On with the tale…


	2. The Prologue

**-PROLOGUE-**

Two miles below the calm, moonlight-dappled surface of the Pacific Ocean, it was perpetually darker than the darkest night above. Sunlight never penetrated to such depths, and so most of the ocean floor was forever shrouded in blackness impenetrable to both human eyes and, so it often seemed, to Cybertronian sensors. This, however, was no ordinary place two miles down in the Pacific Ocean. Decepticon Headquarters, besides being many other things, was an island of intense light in the dense, all-consuming blackness that otherwise surrounded it. And the interior of the huge, erstwhile space cruiser and the underwater city that had sprouted around it was an island of intense activity in an area of the ocean that was otherwise largely devoid of lifeforms more complex than the bacteria that metabolized the noxious gases belched up from the essentially bottomless depths of the neighboring Marianas Trench.

Of course, none of that mattered much to the occupants of Decepticon Headquarters; not the darkness outside, not the trench, not the bacteria, and certainly not anything else living anywhere on planet Earth, except for the Autobots. Then again, even the Autobots didn't have much of a direct effect on the lives of a large percentage of the inhabitants of Decepticon Headquarters. They were primarily the concern of the warriors and, contrary to popular human belief, not everyone who resided at Decepticon Headquarters was an arrogant, battle-crazed, berserker warrior.

Not by a long shot.

In that small part of the Earth occupied by Decepticon Headquarters, it was the middle of the night, about two in the morning. That was also something which meant very little to the Decepticons, except for the fact that the humans guarding their energy-production facilities, the ones that the Decepticons so loved to raid and plunder on occasion, were sometimes less vigilant at two in the morning than they were at two in the afternoon. On this particular night, however, nothing remotely as exciting as a raid was on the agenda. Even so, many areas of Decepticon Headquarters were bustling with activity. There were campaigns to plan. There were endless reports to compose and file. There were tasks of varying levels of importance to perform. And there were some very high-stakes games of chance to play in some of the more secluded areas of Headquarters, games that often drew a rather large crowd of enthusiastic spectators.

Despite that, there were other areas of Decepticon Headquarters that were deserted in the wee hours of the morning, places such as the cargo bays, where extra energon cubes were stored for future use or for eventual shipment to Cybertron. They weren't very often thronged with people, except for right after successful energy raids, but there was always at least one technician on duty at all times. His primary duty was to monitor the energon cubes, to ensure that they remained stable so that they didn't do anything nasty, such as spontaneously explode. An exploding cache of energon cubes would not only destroy the cubes, each of which represented a significant amount of effort on the part of the Decepticons, but they might very well take all of Decepticon Headquarters along with them in a dazzling display of mutual annihilation. It was the technician-on-duty's responsibility to make sure that such a terrible thing never happened. It could be a rather heavy, worrisome responsibility, one that not many Decepticons would willingly bear, knowing that over a thousand lives rested indirectly on one's own shoulders.

This particular evening, the young technician-on-duty in Cargo Bay #2 wasn't particularly happy with his lot in life to begin with, responsibilities or not. His name was Zarex, and before he had been transferred to Earth, he had often heard it said that duty on Earth was far more exciting than duty back on Cybertron. Reality, as Zarex had unfortunately discovered, was entirely another matter. Drudgery was drudgery regardless of one's location, and Zarex had done nothing more exciting than mother-henning energon cubes since his arrival on Earth six months before. It wouldn't be so bad – A technician's life could never be expected to be as eventful as a warrior's life – except that for the past several duty cycles he'd been routinely assigned to the graveyard shift. Those hours of the humans' morning were the time when most of the more interesting things at Decepticon Headquarters happened – Things such as the games, for instance – and Zarex was invariably on duty when they happened. He wondered, certainly not for the first time, whether he'd managed to do something wrong in order to have earned this odd type of punishment.  
So it was that Zarex was alone in Cargo Bay #2 in the wee hours of this particular morning. Zarex was disappointed at the universe in general. Above all, Zarex was bored out of his mind.

And that was just the way that the Decepticon warrior who lurked outside the cargo bay liked it.

Zarex's disillusion and boredom would make him vulnerable. More amenable to suggestion. Easier, perhaps, to approach. So it was with a self-confident, cool, and thoroughly collected attitude that the warrior strode through the heavy double doors of Cargo Bay #2, after first surreptitiously glancing around himself, making sure that he wasn't being watched and that he hadn't been followed.

Startled, Zarex spun around when he heard the doors part with their characteristic swoosh, followed by the sound of his unannounced visitor's heavy, unhurried footsteps clanging against the metal deckplates. Visitors were few and far between in the cargo bays, and he'd often been warned that unexpected visitors in the cargo bays were usually up to no good. He'd been told that they were often attempting to snatch some energon cubes for their own personal horde and that they were not above being lethally violent in order to get them. So Zarex crouched down behind the nearest towering stack of energon cubes and watched, waiting nervously for whatever was going to happen, wondering what in the universe he was going to do if someone was intending to pilfer an energon cube or two.

But nothing happened.

While Zarex surreptitiously watched him, warily peeking out from behind his stack of cubes, his visitor strolled into the cargo bay, stopped after a few paces, and looked around curiously. His stance and his attitude were thoroughly unthreatening. Still, the technician decided to wait a few moments before making his presence known, just to be on the safe side. After all, his visitor was obviously a warrior, judging from the array of weaponry that adorned his big but sleek and powerful body. Zarex, with his small standard technician's sidearm and his much-less-than-impressive combat skills, knew that he was no match for him. Better to see what the warrior was up to first before even thinking about approaching him.

Apparently, however, the warrior was up to nothing. He just stood there, waiting patiently for Zarex knew not what. The cargo bay was utterly silent except for the low-pitched, reverberating thrumming sound that the energon cubes emitted, and the bay's muted lighting was gleaming off of the warrior's glossy, painstakingly polished, predominantly orange and red body. The warrior crossed his arms over his chest, apparently waiting for something, and then, breaking the silence, he spoke. And his deep, mellifluous voice, Zarex discovered, was like the finest silk – smooth and flowing and soft, but with very noticeable underlying strength.

"Hello?" the warrior called out. "I know someone is in here." The warrior paused then, waiting for a response. When he didn't get one, he turned around in a circle, taking in the whole bay, looking for the technician that he knew was lurking somewhere in the room. When he had turned himself around completely, so that he again faced Zarex's hiding spot, there was a slight, almost whimsical smile on his face. "Come out, come out, wherever you are," the warrior added in an almost sing-song voice, apparently amused.

Steeling himself, adopting an air of entirely false courage, Zarex stepped out from behind the towering stack of energon cubes. He deliberately stayed close to the cubes, however, so that he could dive behind the stack again if need be. After all, no one was crazy enough to fire an energy weapon toward a stack of extremely volatile energon cubes.

At least, he hoped not.

"What do you want?" Zarex belligerently demanded, glad that his voice didn't tremble out of fear and nervousness.

"No need to be so angry, my brother!" the warrior replied with a soft, amused chuckle. "My apologies for startling you. I am not here to do any harm. It is merely my duty to make certain that this area of Headquarters is secure. Nothing more."

There was an almost hypnotic quality to the warrior's almost impossibly deep voice. Zarex found himself staring at him, reassured, relaxed by both the warrior's words and by his entire attitude, all of which was very odd because Zarex had always been thoroughly intimidated by warriors, no matter who they were, and had always felt insignificant, if nothing else, in their presence. Warriors had a way of looking down upon lowly technicians, as if the warriors believed the technicians to be lower than dust; it was quite apparent to Zarex that the warriors thought that _anyone_ who wasn't also a warrior was lower than dust.

But this one... He'd apologized for making Zarex jump nearly to the ceiling. He called the technician "brother," a term that warriors usually used exclusively with other warriors. This warrior was different, and the technician knew it instantly, if only subliminally. This warrior was also staring at Zarex expectantly, waiting for him to say something.

_Preferably something civil, I'd imagine_, Zarex thought wryly to himself.

"Oh!" he uttered aloud, shaking his head quickly to clear his thoughts. "Well, I'm...I'm sorry. It's just that I've never heard of anyone checking in here before."

"Oh, really?" the warrior replied mildly. "Well, they should have. It is part of the job."

With that, the warrior took a few moments to pace around the cargo bay, appearing to inspect it, just as he had told the technician that he was there to do. Zarex followed slowly, cautiously in his wake. He lagged behind at a safe distance, however. He knew that it wasn't wise to lower his guard, no matter the situation.

The inspection completed, the warrior headed for the doors to leave. Or at least, that was what Zarex thought he was going to do. But instead, he turned around abruptly before he reached the doors and walked back toward Zarex, stopping only a few meters away from the technician. He folded his arms across his chest and just stared at Zarex for a moment or two. Zarex froze, staring up, way up, at the face of the warrior in front of him, suddenly terrified. He didn't quite understand his sudden unease for a moment until he realized that it was probably instinctual; the powerful warrior before him was suddenly acting very oddly.

Zarex took a nervous step backward. And then another. But the warrior paced him, taking a slow, measured step forward to match each hasty, frightened one that Zarex took backward. Zarex took one more step backward, only to discover that he'd merely managed to back himself up against the nearest stack of energon cubes.

_Real smart, Zarex_, he bitterly chastised himself. The warrior, meanwhile, was smiling warmly, almost reassuringly, down at Zarex, apparently unaware of Zarex's unease.

"It appears," the warrior said with an odd edge to his voice, "that you are much more competent at your job than my predecessor in this part of Headquarters was at his. It is a shame that…_some_ people don't appreciate those of us who do our jobs well, hmmm? Do you understand my meaning, my brother?"

Zarex swallowed with difficulty, unsure of what to say, certainly unsure of what the warrior wanted to hear. All he knew was that the warrior's nearness was almost overwhelming. Fear ripped through him, but at the same time, the warrior's hypnotic voice compelled him to answer the warrior's question honestly.

"Yes!" Zarex blurted out, his voice squeaking with equal measures of fear and relief. "Yes, I know exactly what you mean! Those of us who do our jobs well never get the recognition that we deserve and–"  
"—And those of us who don't do our jobs well enough," the warrior finished for him, "are not punished nearly as severely as they deserve to be punished, correct?"

"Yes! Yes, that's it exactly! It just goes to show that there's no justice in this universe," Zarex bitterly replied, not believing that the warrior was having this type of conversation with the likes of himself, not believing that he was babbling dangerously traitorous notions to an obviously powerful warrior.

Zarex opened his mouth to say something else, to apologize for his babbling, at least. Instead, he let out a sharp yelp of surprise when the warrior moved with preternatural speed, lunging forward to grab Zarex's left forearm in a crushing grip. At the same time, with his other hand, the warrior pinned Zarex's right shoulder to the stack of energon cubes behind him. Stunned for a moment, Zarex didn't even think to struggle. And when he did attempt to escape the warrior's grasp, something stabbed deeply into his arm. Seconds later, sheer agony ripped along every circuit in his arm before the whole thing went suddenly numb. Staring down at his suddenly numbed arm, Zarex saw to his horror that it had been punctured, that the warrior's fingers had sunk deeply into forearm. Squinting down at it, Zarex thought he could see a faint green glow around the wounds, but it might have been his terrified imagination. He looked back up at the warrior, horrified, and opened his mouth to say something—

—And then he screamed because the pain that had shot up his arm before abruptly disappearing had suddenly returned, and this time it was on the move. It spread quickly, out into his chest, up into his head, down into his legs. Wherever the pain went, numbness soon followed, but not nearly soon enough. For a few seconds that yawned on forever, Zarex felt as if the inside of his body was on fire. But even while screaming in pain and terror, even though he knew that no one would ever hear him in this remote corner of the underbelly of Headquarters, Zarex nonetheless stared wide-eyed up at the warrior's face, watching his expression. He looked remarkably calm, a tolerant and almost affectionate smile playing across the features of his face.

"Ah, but there _is_ justice, my brother," the warrior was saying softly. His tone of voice was almost comforting, even, as he calmly watched intense pain and then numbness fully consume Zarex's body. When Zarex had quieted to mere whimpering, his scrambled motor impulses causing his entire body to twitch and then to convulse violently in the warrior's grasp, he continued quietly, "Justice is often slow, but it is inevitable. Have patience. Have faith. It will all work out. And sooner than you might think."

And with that, the warrior abruptly released Zarex's convulsing body. He stepped back a few paces and folded his arms across his chest again, watching Zarex with detached calm, knowing that the unpleasantness would soon be over for the young technician.

Meanwhile, his whole body having gone numb by then, Zarex promptly collapsed on the floor when the warrior released him, like a marionette whose strings had suddenly been cut. He was gasping, and still twitching, and he stared up at the warrior with an expression of stark accusation on his face. Frantically, he ran an internal diagnostic on himself, but was appalled when he received no feedback from it. Whatever the warrior had done to him, it had scrambled all of his internal systems, including his diagnostic sensors. It seemed as if something foreign, something alien, had settled into his mind, blocking any thoughts that Zarex's own consciousness might have. It was difficult to put words together in his head and then even more difficult to make his mouth function in order to speak, but Zarex somehow managed it.

"What… What have you…done to me?" Zarex pathetically gasped out. But the warrior merely smiled gently down at him.

"You will know soon enough, my brother," he replied, and his voice sounded almost...soothing? He watched with satisfaction as Zarex's eyes flashed briefly green and then slowly reverted back to their normal deep red. "Everything will make sense in just a few minutes."

About two minutes later, Zarex's paralyzed body began to tingle, sensation slowly returning, and a soft warmth suffused his body. His consciousness felt detached for a moment, but it quickly settled down, and he found that the foreign presence in his mind that he'd sensed before was still there. In fact, it seemed to be working in tandem with his own to form a new, slightly different consciousness. Zarex suddenly knew things that he hadn't known before and abruptly forgot other things that he had known all of his brief life. And, with that faint glimmering of understanding, his terror was rapidly replaced with a cold, calm clarity of purpose, the likes of which he'd never experienced in his life.

Zarex narrowed his eyes, trying to understand, automatically ran another self-diagnostic. It told him that suddenly everything was functioning normally again. Better than normally, in fact: perfectly. Blinking in confusion, Zarex pushed himself up to his knees. He sat back on his heels and absently rubbed at the forearm that the warrior had punctured, staring down at it. The five wounds were regenerating at an entirely unnatural rate; they would be unnoticeable in a few moments. Zarex pulled in a few deep breaths before raising his puzzled gaze to meet the warrior's calm one, and suddenly discovered that he was no longer frightened of the big warrior at all. He felt only calm.

Calm and...familiarity.

"Well?" the warrior that Zarex suddenly knew was named Firestrike asked mildly, his brow creased with concern. "_Is_ everything all right, Zarex?"

"Yes," Zarex breathed, awe in his voice. "Yes, I think so, Firestrike." Zarex blinked up at Firestrike and smiled beatifically. "Everything will be just fine."

Firestrike chuckled, suddenly crouched down so that he was eye-to-eye with the still-confused technician, who now stared at him, his eyes as wide as an owl's.

"Yes, Zarex," Firestrike agreed. "It will be just fine, with your help." He paused and smiled knowingly at Zarex. "You know what you must do now," he said, and it was not at all a question.

Zarex nodded mutely.

Firestrike chuckled again and stood up, offering a hand to Zarex. Zarex stared at it suspiciously, but only for a half-second. Then he reached out, grabbed Firestrike's hand, and Firestrike effortlessly pulled him to his feet.

"I will be in touch soon," he said quietly, continuing to wear his enigmatic smile.

Zarex nodded dumbly again while Firestrike turned and swept dramatically out of the cargo bay, leaving in his wake an awestruck, dumbstruck technician who gaped at the door for long minutes after Firestrike left.


	3. Why Ironhide Hates Life

_Wee notes:_

_Yeah, yeah, I updated early. I more or less finished the next bit after this one, but for the endless picking at it, so I figured it was safe to upload this._

_It may seem familiar to you, if you've read all the stuff on my website. This is one of the "fanfic fragments" that I have posted there, which was culled from the original version of this story. This version...isn't all that much different, actually. But I still think it's amusing._

_Thanks to those who commented on the stuff up so far. I'm glad you found the prologue interesting. We'll get back to Decepticon HQ, but first! Have a (miserable) morning in the life on Ironhide. _

**-ONE-**

Perversely, one of the worst days in Ironhide's long life to date started out peacefully enough.

He rose half an hour before the crack of dawn, as was his habit. Taking his sweet time, he eventually wandered over to the energon dispenser and ordered up his customary morning pick-me-up: a huge mug of extra strong energon. Eventually moving over to his comfortable, well-worn couch, Ironhide sank down into its depths and snapped on his vidscreen. He sipped idly at his energon while he took a look at the morning news broadcast, something that had become a bit of a habit over the years. Rural northwestern Oregon was a fairly uneventful place, however, and nothing on the news interested him much except for the weather forecast. He was pleased to see that it was promising to be another unseasonably warm early autumn day. Most importantly, there was no rain in the forecast. Rain wreaked havoc with construction schedules.

It was only after his peaceful morning ritual was completed that Ironhide's day rather quickly began to fall apart.

Strolling out of his quarters on the top floor of the first residential complex that had been completed in Autobot City, he took a lift down to the ground floor and almost cheerfully ambled out into the refreshingly cool, dim twilight of early morning. Almost as soon as he set foot outside, Ironhide was accosted by Grapple, who was panicking. This was not necessarily cause for alarm, though; lately, it seemed to Ironhide that Grapple was in a perpetual state of panic.

Already, construction on Autobot City was somewhat behind schedule. The main culprit was Earth's unpredictable weather. Namely, several deluges that had lasted for days and that had put Ironhide in mind of the story of Noah's Flood. The rain had caused several major mudslides, each of which had taken days to clear and that had partially destroyed some of the infrastructure of the city that had been in place. That infrastructure now needed to be rebuilt. There had also been some problems with Earth's equally unpredictable bureaucracy. And then, of course, there were the dreaded environmentalists… In short, Autobot City faced the normal stumbling blocks that slowed almost any development project of the size and complexity of Autobot City's construction.

But now Grapple was reporting that his construction team – a liberal and eclectic mixture of Autobot and human architects, developers, subcontractors, civil and structural engineers, and a small army of volunteer laborers – had already run out of several important building materials, and replenishments for these particular materials could only be procured from Cybertron. Rather than calling Cybertron himself, Grapple was merely passing the buck to Ironhide who, as the city's reluctant administrator during its construction, would be much more effective at cutting through the miles of red tape that a request for a transfer of materials would no doubt generate.

At least, that's what Grapple told Ironhide as he hurriedly shoved a datapad, which displayed the beginning of an exhaustive list of the items that Grapple needed, into Ironhide's hands. Ironhide frowned down at the pad for a moment or two. He didn't exactly agree that his intervention would necessarily speed up the requisition process, but, as administrator, it was his job to deal with the bureaucrats, not Grapple's. Certainly not for the first time, Ironhide wondered why in the world Optimus Prime had given him, of all people, this job. But despite his misgivings, Ironhide assured Grapple that he'd take care of the problem. He just didn't look forward to taking care of it, since doing so meant that he'd be forced to deal with the vast Autobot bureaucracy on Cybertron.

And it had started out as such a _nice_ day...

Ironhide sighed heavily as he and Grapple went their separate ways. _Sometimes I think the Decepticons have the right idea, _he thought rather blasphemously to himself. _They killed all of the bureaucrats that they could get their hands on..._

Muttering under his breath, taking his time in order to slightly delay the inevitable, Ironhide proceeded to the administrative building across town and slowly climbed the seventeen flights of steps up to his office instead of riding the lift. It took longer to climb the steps and would therefore delay his confrontation with the bureaucrats on Cybertron by still a few more minutes. When he finally got to his office, he puttered about for half an hour – straightening things that didn't really require straightening, cleaning things that didn't really require cleaning, doing some meaningless paperwork that was already a month overdue anyway – before he finally, reluctantly sat down at his desk and fired up his computer console.

The computer immediately beeped annoyingly at him, enthusiastically announcing that it had all sorts of messages in memory, just waiting for his perusal. Ironhide ignored them all for the time being and instead ordered the computer to open up a communications frequency to Cybertron, figuring that it was best to take care of his most distasteful task first. The messages could wait.

And wait they did. The computer beeped again a moment later. And then it began speaking in its breathy, disarmingly female voice, someone's idea of a joke, surely. The voice had become universally known around Autobot City as "Marilyn," after Sideswipe had noted that the voice sounded an awful lot like a certain 1950s movie star. The voice made Ironhide long for Teletran One's calming, solid tenor.

"All Autobot communications frequencies between Cybertron and Earth are currently in use," Marilyn placidly announced. "Do you wish to wait for an open channel?"

"Do I have a choice?" Ironhide growled rhetorically under his breath.

Marilyn beeped at him again.

"Your last voice input was unclear," it said cheerfully. "Please try again."

"I'll give you unclear, you stupid pile of microchips," Ironhide muttered.

"Your last voice input was—" Marilyn patiently tried to reply before Ironhide interrupted it with a fierce whack on the terminal's housing.

"Yes, I wish to wait!"Ironhide bellowed at the machine, resisting a sudden urge to smash it into a zillion tiny pieces.

"Thank you," Marilyn said complacently, thoroughly unimpressed with Ironhide's display of temper.

Ironhide just moaned softly and proceeded to bang a clenched fist rhythmically against the desktop while he waited.

And waited. And waited some more.

It took over an hour to get the call through to Cybertron, the myriad vagaries of interstellar communications being what they were. Once the call got through to Autobot Central Communications, it took the ACC worker another half hour to reroute the call to the Urban Development Department, even though the UDD was in the very same building as the ACC, not several thousand light years away, as Earth was. And then it took the UDD receptionist yet another half hour to get Ironhide's call through to the Assistant Director of Material Resources, to whom Ironhide needed to speak in order to get the authorization for the transfer of the necessary materials to Earth.

After more than two hours on the line, waiting to be connected, Ironhide was in none too charitable a mood. He skipped the usual polite pleasantries and brusquely told the Assistant Director who he was and what he needed.

"Ah," the Assistant Director said with a comprehending nod and a bureaucratic smile after hearing Ironhide out. "I'm afraid that's quite impossible."

Ironhide, however, had heard that line before. It was what bureaucrats always said the first time they were asked for something.

"What do you mean, 'quite impossible'?" he replied blandly, with impressive calm considering his foul mood. "Autobot City is a top-priority project, and I was just informed by our master builder that we need this stuff. I don't know what the hell half of it is, but we need it. All of it. Right away. It's my job to tell you this. It's your job to find the damned stuff somewhere and get it shipped here. End of story."

The Assistant Director looked faintly bored. As a bureaucrat, he was used to being screamed at, and Ironhide was still at the reasonable stage.

"Impossible means precisely that, sir. Resources are extremely limited. The initial allocation of materials that you received should have been more than adequate to complete the Autobot City project. If it was not, then the problem is yours to deal with, not mine. I suggest that you speak with your master builder and review with him or her the proper procedures for—"

"Proper procedures?" Ironhide interrupted, his veneer of calm beginning to erode quickly. "_Proper procedures_?!!" And then he caught himself, took a few deep breaths and continued with strained calm, "Look, I get that resources are very scarce. I really do. And I know you guys up there do your level best to make sure that everyone gets what they need and no more. But that 'initial allocation' that you're so fond of wasn't enough to build a decent-sized bathroom for the humans, let alone a whole city, and you know it."

"I know nothing of the sort," the Assistant Director replied, all unruffled. His bureaucratic smugness easily matched Ironhide's impatient belligerence. "All I know is that you received the standard allocation for an urban development project. No more, no less."

"Yeah, and that's fine and dandy and all. Except that we were supposed to get at least triple that amount. I've got the authorization right here," Ironhide said. He yanked a datapad out of a disorganized stack of datapads on his desk and waved it in front of the screen while the other pads clattered to the floor. "See, it's even got your Director's signature on it. Right. There."

The Assistant Director looked unimpressed.

"Well," he said huffily, "if the Director has authorized a Special Exception to Regulation 427 Alpha, Section B12 – which I doubt – then the exception was not subsequently communicated to me, and I cannot approve your request without appropriate authorization. You will have to take up this matter with the Director herself who, I'm afraid, is on vacation and will not be available for two weeks. Good day, sir."

And then the Assistant Director reached out to terminate the communication. And then Ironhide lost all patience, not to mention any last vestige of civility.

"Oh, no! You wait, and you listen to me," Ironhide growled. He didn't raise his voice, really; he simply let it drown in an undercurrent of deep menace. He leaned in closer to his screen, too, the better to intimidate. "I've been sittin' on this damn line for over two hours waitin' to speak to you, and we _will_ deal with this 'miscommunication' of yours right here and right now. We need these materials. I don't care how you do it, but you will get in touch with that Director of yours, wherever the hell she is, and you will clear up this matter. You will do this personally. You will do this the moment that we end this conversation. I will then get those materials _before_ two weeks is up, or I promise you that I will come up there and get them myself. _You, _personally, will _not_ be happy if I have to do that. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

The Assistant Director merely blinked at Ironhide, taken aback. He was used to being screamed at, but Ironhide was not screaming. Ironhide was calmly but vehemently threatening him, and the Assistant Director was not at all used to being personally threatened. He was momentarily dumbfounded, particularly because he had heard stories about this Ironhide, and knew that the Autobot warrior was known for a particular lack of restraint when his temper kicked in.

"Do you understand me?!" Ironhide suddenly bellowed, meanwhile, still waiting for an answer from the bureaucrat.

The Assistant Director jumped at the sudden increase in Ironhide's volume, goggled comically at the screen for a moment, and then gulped audibly.

"I'll do my best," he murmured, deflated.

Ironhide scowled malevolently and then jammed Grapple's datapad with its grocery list into the computer interface and uploaded the list of needed materials directly to the Assistant Director's terminal.

"You'd better do better than your best, you miserable, scum-sucking sewer vermin," Ironhide growled while the data transferred, "or I'll be seein' you _very_ soon."

The second the data transfer was complete, Ironhide terminated the communication with a vicious jab of his index finger and then blindly hurled Grapple's now-empty datapad across the room. The speeding pad missed Wheeljack's head by mere millimeters as he walked, unsuspectingly, into Ironhide's office. Wheeljack let out an alarmed, involuntary yelp, making Ironhide look up from the computer screen at which he was still glowering.

"Now what the hell do _you_ want?!" Ironhide demanded of the hapless engineer.

Wheeljack froze in his tracks so quickly that one foot remained raised in mid-step. He cringed at Ironhide's tone.

"Sorry," he said, turning abruptly to leave. "I'll come back later, when you're in a better mood. Will fifty years be long enough, do you think?"

And then it was Ironhide's turn to cringe, only his was a rather more guilty kind of cringe.

"Oh, wait a minute, Wheeljack," he said more calmly. "I'm sorry; I didn't mean to snap at ya. I just got finished dealing with the bureaucrats on Cybertron again, that's all."

Wheeljack turned around again.

"Ahhhhh!" he said comprehendingly, as he walked over to the chair across the desk from Ironhide's and sprawled himself casually across it, lacing his fingers happily across his midsection. "Your bad mood's perfectly understandable, then. What's the problem?"

"Nothing that you can help with, I'm afraid, Wheeljack," Ironhide replied. And then one corner of his mouth jerked upwards a bit in a self-satisfied grin. "'Sides, I think I intimidated the bureaucrat enough to get what I want. So! What's up?"

Wheeljack narrowed his eyes at Ironhide and shrugged.

"You tell me," he replied, confused.

"What do you mean?" Ironhide asked, equally confused.

"Well, you messaged me last night and said something about wanting to see me this morning about something or other. Didn't you?"

Ironhide frowned, then vaguely recalled sending a message to Wheeljack right before he'd retired for the night.

"Oh yeah!" he said. "But not till 10:00."

"It's 10:15," Wheeljack said ruefully. "Sorry I'm late."

"What?!" Ironhide exclaimed, jerking his gaze over to the clock on the wall and scowling at it as if it had betrayed him. "Well I'll be damned," he said wonderingly. "Time flies when you're threatening people."

Wheeljack chuckled.

"That it does," he said. "So. What's up, Ironhide?"

Ironhide leaned back in his chair, lacing his fingers behind his head, taking a moment to remember what he'd wanted to talk to Wheeljack about. Recollection took a few moments, since his mind was cluttered with so many other issues.

"Oh, yeah!" he exclaimed, once he managed to access the right file in his brain. "I read that proposal you sent me the other day…" he began.

Wheeljack suspiciously narrowed his eyes at Ironhide again as Ironhide's voice trailed off. He automatically hated Ironhide's tone of voice, because when Ironhide began a speech in that casual, off-handed way of his, it invariably meant that he was going to tell Wheeljack that under no circumstances could he work on the proposed projects.

"Which proposal?" he asked warily. "Not the MiniBomb one!"

"Oh no," Ironhide said. "But I do really like that one! No, this was the one where you were rambling on about ideas that you had, ideas for future projects...?"

"I wasn't 'rambling on,'" Wheeljack said, all prickily defensive of a sudden. "I was brainstorming."

Ironhide grinned.

"Whatever," he said with a noncommittal shrug. "Anyway, I was reading it last night, and, well..."

Ironhide's voice trailed off again, making Wheeljack all the warier. He fidgeted in his seat, sitting up a little straighter, waiting for the axe to fall.

"And?" he prompted when Ironhide said nothing for a few moments.

"And something sparked my interest."

Wheeljack sighed, relieved, and slumped down in his seat again. Ironhide's interest was a good sign.

"What was it?" Wheeljack asked.

"What did you call it? A transponder or...or a...transporter, or something like that...?"

Wheeljack nodded his head enthusiastically.

"Oh, yes! The transporter," he said. "Well...actually, that's not _my_ name for it, but that's the name they use..."

"'They?' Who's 'they?'"

Wheeljack shrugged sheepishly. "The guys on _Star Trek_," he said.

Ironhide would have rolled his eyes if he could have. Here he had thought that this was going to be one of Wheeljack's more promising ideas. He really should have known better, after all the years he'd known Wheeljack.

"Oh no, not that damned show again!" he complained. "The whole thing's a product of one crazed human's lunatic imagination! It's not real! And if you quote one more of James T. Kirk's speeches to me, I'm warning you right now that I'm just gonna have to rip your head off."

Though his face wasn't really an expressive one, Wheeljack still managed to look hurt.

"I know it's not real," he said quietly, defensively. "But this thing can work! I mean, I think I can make it work! I mean, the theory behind it is sound. Sort of..."

"Now where have I heard that before...?" Ironhide airily mused.

"No really!" Wheeljack asserted. "Really, it could work! Basically, the transporter works by converting a person or thing's component matter into phased energy, collecting it and storing the original pattern in a computer archive and then transmitting the energy and the pattern to the place you want to go and then reconverting the energy back into matter and arranging the matter according to the pattern of the original person or thing."

Ironhide looked skeptical, not to mention way beyond the boundaries of his area of expertise.

"Sounds complicated beyond words," he said doubtfully.

Wheeljack shrugged.

"Not really..." he hedged.

Ironhide snorted.

"And anyway," he said, "isn't that sort of like what Skywarp does? I heard that eats a hell of a lot of energy."

Wheeljack shook his head vigorously.

"No, it's not at all the same. Similar outcome, maybe, but completely different strategy."

"Oh really?" Ironhide said, knowing that Wheeljack would now expound at length on the differences. He was an engineer; he couldn't resist lengthy technical explanations. Ironhide leaned back in his seat in preparation, getting comfortable for the long haul. Wheeljack, as usual, didn't disappoint, punctuating his lecture with demonstrative hand gestures.

"See," Wheeljack said, hands flying in the air as he tried to explain the finer points of teleportation, "from what I've been able to figure, Skywarp teleports by creating a field that literally warps subspace around him, bringing the point he occupies at that moment very close to the point where he wants to go. He then drops into subspace, moves that tiny bit across the warped bit, then creates a neutralizing field that unwarps space, and voilá! He's moved a considerable distance almost instantaneously. The drawback is that, like you said, it eats tons of energy to warp and then unwarp subspace and, because of that, it can only be done across a relatively short distance. And it's quite the trick to teleport through anything other than empty space. Transporting, on the other hand, is slower, but it should use no more energy than a single laser blast per person or object transported and it could be used, theoretically, across almost limitless distances and through anything. Planetary atmospheres. Buildings. Two miles of Pacific Ocean..."

"You mean down to Decepticon Headquarters," Ironhide said with a nod, catching Wheeljack's drift.

"That's the ticket," Wheeljack said, also nodding. "You catch on fast. All I have to do is figure out how to safely convert a person's constituent mass into phased energy and back…"

"Sounds like a pretty problem," Ironhide said.

"Ah, but those are my specialty," Wheeljack said confidently.

Ironhide snorted, only slightly dubiously.

"Well, it sounds good to me," he said, "although I'll probably kick myself later for saying that. So get to work."

Wheeljack bounced excitedly to his feet.

"I'll keep you informed," he said, turning to leave and heading for the door.

"You do that," Ironhide said as his office door slid shut behind Wheeljack.

Ironhide shook his head, amused. Wheeljack's boundless enthusiasm for insane projects always amazed him. Still, this insane project, sounded very promising, if Wheeljack could actually make it work. But Wheeljack could be incredibly resourceful when it came to his pet projects, so Ironhide had every confidence that if it could be done at all, Wheeljack would figure out how to make it work.

Ironhide's attention was reclaimed by his computer when it started beeping insistently at him again, informing him that he had an incoming communication. Ironhide half expected it to be the Assistant Director of Material Resources getting back to him about the materials that Grapple needed, so he put on an aggressively expectant face and punched the button on the panel that opened the incoming frequency. He was surprised to find Prowl's face peering out from the screen in front of him instead.

Ironhide tensed instinctively. Prowl wasn't one for calling just to shoot the breeze. In fact, Prowl rarely called him at all, except when something bad was happening or had happened or was about to happen. Ironhide half expected Prowl to announce that the universe was about to explode, but then he actually smiled a bit, something that he didn't often do and certainly wouldn't have done if disaster was imminent. Ironhide relaxed, leaning back in his chair and lacing his fingers behind his head.

"Hey, Prowl," he said amiably. "How the hell are ya?"

Prowl nodded.

"I'm fine," he said. "I have some good news for you."

"Hallelujah!" Ironhide responded brightly. "I sure as hell could use some!"

Prowl frowned, suddenly concerned.

"Is everything all right up there?" he asked.

Ironhide snorted.

"Oh, just fine and dandy! I love the smell of bureaucratic bullshit in the morning," he said sarcastically. Then he shook his head apologetically. "Aw, don't mind me," he said. "I've just spent my morning dealing with mad scientists and smug bureaucrats, that's all."

Prowl grimaced.

"Well, now _that's_ a combination guaranteed to brighten your day," he said sympathetically. "Now how about adding one cranky Autobot leader to that list of things you have to deal with?"

Ironhide's eyes widened, surprised and slightly panicked at the same time.

"He's coming back?" was all he could think of to say. Optimus Prime had been away on Cybertron for the past few weeks, leaving Prowl in command on Earth. Ironhide had been content to have the Autobot leader far, _far_ away while he dealt with Autobot City's issues.

Prowl nodded.

"I just spoke with him. He and his party are leaving Cybertron tomorrow. They should be here at Headquarters inside of a week. He wants to see Autobot City."

"That's...that's great..." Ironhide said weakly, trying to sound enthusiastic, a forced and likely manic-looking smiled glued to his face. Inside, however, he was panicking. Here they were, behind schedule, materials used up, replacement materials tied up in miles of red tape back on Cybertron, and now Optimus Prime wanted the grand tour. Ironhide's panicked thoughts must have been blazingly obvious because, even though Prowl could never be accused of being the universe's most empathetic individual, he still frowned with concern again.  
"Are you sure you're all right, Ironhide?" he asked solicitously.

"All right?" Ironhide echoed, dazed. "Oh! Oh, yeah, I'm fine. Just peachy. Thanks for the info... Listen, Prowl, I gotta run, OK? Got tons of work to do. Talk to you later. Bye!"

And with that, Ironhide leaned forward, terminated the communication before Prowl could get a word in edgewise, and proceeded to bang his forehead against the desktop.

"AAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGHHH!" he yelled in frustration.

Then he abruptly sat up straight in his chair and began to corral his racing thoughts. He told the computer to contact the Assistant Director of Material Resources again, whatever his name was, and he didn't care how long he had to wait. Then he sent out plaintive messages to Huffer, Grapple, and some other key members of the construction team. Then he looked at the list of mail that the computer was holding for him. Then he groaned and bagged it all.

Ironhide flung himself out of his chair and told the computer to flag him when it had reached the Assistant Director. Until then, he was going to pester Ratchet. It wasn't yet 11:00 in the morning, but already he had the universe's worst-ever headache.


End file.
